THE CHAMBER COMPASS - JOIN US FOR THIS NEW EVENT EACH MONTH! - Port Clinton Area Chamber of ...
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W I N T E R 2 0 2 1
THE CHAMBER
COMPASS
Official Newsletter of the Port Clinton Chamber of
Commerce
IN THIS ISSUE:
JOIN US FOR THIS NEW EVENT A Letter from
EACH MONTH! Chamber President:
Page 1
A Letter from PCCSD:
Beginning in February, grab a cup of coffee and join me on the
Page 2
last Friday of the month at 9:30am via zoom! I want to hear
from you, our members and members of our community, about
A Letter from LESI:
what your business needs and wants out of your Chamber
Page 3
membership. Each month, I will also touch on the benefits we
currently offer and explore options for future benefits. My hope
is that through these conversations, we can learn how to better Chamber News:
serve our members and that once we are able these Page 4
conversations will continue IN PERSON!
Main Street News:
Look for more information on how to join our February "Coffee
Page 5
with the President" in your email soon!
Chamber Benefits:
Page 6-7
A LETTER FROM YOUR CHAMBER PRESIDENT Nicole Kochensparger Hello, I hope that you had a wonderful Christmas and New Year! When I stepped in to this role just over 10 months ago, I had no idea what our businesses were about to face. One of my main goals over the past 10 months has been to make sure you have the most current, accurate information so that you can make the best decisions for your business. This goal has led me to take a look at our current benefits and revamp our committees in order to make sure that your Chamber is serving you to the best of our ability. Traditionally, we have always sent you a "save the date" card when you renew your membership. With things changing, sometimes daily, we are not at this time committing to a timeline of events for 2021. However, we do have a year of Business After/Before Hours planned and will currently be highlighting those host businesses on our social media platforms, website and YouTube channel until we can host them in person. Our Lunch N Learn series is back in March and November! March's program will be virtual and our hope is that November's will be in person! Our Annual Dinner & Awards, normally held in April, will now be held outdoors in June! Look for more information soon. I am pleased to announce that our Administrative Assistant, Brittani Blevins, has been promoted to Operations Manager! Brittani joined the Chamber last March and has completely embraced this community and our members! Our "What's Happening Around Port Clinton" calendar has had huge success gaining thousands of like's and views each week. Please use this FREE benefit and send us your events. Another goal of mine is to inform our community about what is happening behind the scenes, which led to our "What's Happening with Mayor Snider" monthly series. Check it out on our Facebook page! I hope that you will join me for "Coffee with the President" on February 26th. Thank you for your continued support. I has been my pleasure to serve you and I look forward to continuing this important work. Happy 2021! Nicole
A LETTER FROM PCCSD
Donations Help Fund Port Clinton’s New Athletic Building
Port Clinton City School District has some exciting news to share. Thanks to
the generosity of the Port Clinton Athletic Boosters, the Zink Family, and the
Port Clinton Board of Education, they are pleased to announce a new athletic
training facility will be opening soon for student athletes.
“Work has been completed and this is truly a remarkable opportunity for our
student athletes”, stated Patrick Adkins, Superintendent of Schools. The new
facility is located at 407 Short Street and don’t let the building exterior fool
you, everyone will be amazed at this facility. Formerly the warehouse for Zink
Calls, the facility includes an extensive weight room, wrestling area, and
indoor field house. Updates to the exterior of the building will take place this
Spring 2021.
Over the past year, Port Clinton City Schools have been working with the Port
Clinton Athletic Boosters to find possible options to provide facilities for
student athletes. At the August 17, 2020 Board of Education Meeting, the
board approved to accept the generous donations that made the purchase of a
large warehouse possible. The purchase of the facility, the former Zink
warehouse, was made economically feasible by the generous donation/sale of
the facility at a cost of $225,000 from Fred and Dawn Zink, along with the Port
Clinton Athletic Boosters donating $400,000. The school district’s portion of
the purchase was made out of permanent improvement funds. Rick Dominick,
PCHS Athletic Director, said the building will allow for off-season workout
space for several of our PCHS athletic teams such as baseball, softball, soccer,
football, golf, wrestling and track. Adkins added, “We are extremely grateful
for the continued support of our Port Clinton Athletic Boosters, combined with
the generosity of the Zink family. This facility will address multiple needs in
our district including a much needed wrestling facility, centralized district
storage, garage for school vehicles, indoor athletic training facility for all
student athletes, additional weight training facility to compliment our stadium
and high school facilities which we have outgrown.”
To see more about this new facility visit https://bit.ly/pcFieldhouse
PHOTO: PCAB - Port
Clinton Athletic Boosters sponsored the new Port Clinton City Schools
Fieldhouse trustees and officers left to right:
Terry Dunn, Treasurer; Bob Polacheck; Brennan Madison; Dwayne Colston;
John Gluth, Jr. President; Lisa Sarty; Jeff Johnson, Secretary; and Roy
Martinez.
PORT CLINTON HIGH SCHOOL
LEADERSHIP COUNCIL
PCHS Leadership Council Side by Side with our Community Raffle!
Port Clinton High School Leadership Council appreciates support from local
businesses for their various events and fundraisers. In an effort to give
back to the Port Clinton community during a pandemic, students have organized
Keeping it Local campaign.
Students met virtually with Nicole Kochensparger,
President of the Port Clinton Area Chamber of Commerce to organize an event
that would help area businesses. PCHS Leadership Council members decided
on a reverse fundraiser and are selling raffle tickets for $10 each for a chance
to win a $50 Chamber of Commerce gift certificate. The gift certificates
can be used at over 45 local businesses. There will be 15 winning tickets
drawn and all proceeds benefit our local businesses.
For tickets please
call the PCHS Main Office at 419-734-2147 and join PCHS students in keeping it
local!
PHOTO:
PCHS Leadership Council Officers (left to right) Averie Webb, Ethan Carpenter
and Hannah Cross are selling raffle tickets for a reverse fundraiser to benefit
Port Clinton Area Businesses. Tickets are now on sale for their Keeping
it Local – Side by Side with our Community raffle
A LETTER FROM LESI-LARRY FLETCHER
As I work on our 2020 annual report, I am doing what all other destination marketing organizations are having to do this
year, including a footnote acknowledging 2020 as the year COVID-19 impacted our operation in ways we could not
have imagined.
We had started the year having come off a very strong 2019 with all metrics we track being up. The pieces were falling
together for 2020 to be an incredible year and we therefore had set very ambitious goals.
2020 was in fact incredible, but not defined in the way we could have ever anticipated. In mid-March our organization
quickly shifted our goals and expectations from making plans based on growing our business, to developing strategies for
how to survive. Our initial main focus areas therefore became:
The Health & Safety of Our Team:
We closed our welcome centers to the public and staff however continued to serve our partners and guests by answering
phones and emails remotely.
Survival of Our Organization:
We unfortunately found it necessary to eliminate our part-time travel counselor staff and reduce our payroll by 50% by
utilizing SharedWork Ohio. We cut expenses across all other areas of our operation and adjusted our revenue projections
down by as much as 70%.
Support for Our Region’s Businesses & Communities:
Once businesses and activities began becoming available to people, we gathered and promoted information about what
was open. Throughout the year, our marketing messaging shifted appropriate to current travel policies. Messaging included
what our businesses were doing to provide a clean and safe experience. We also served as an information resource for
our tourism industry partners and continued to encourage residents to support their local businesses; work that continues
today.
Advocacy for Safe Opening of Businesses:
I was one of many from our region who served on one of the Governor’s “Responsible Restart Ohio” committees
advocating for the safe opening of our tourism industry businesses. I also joined others in providing testimony on this
subject at several Ohio Legislative Committee hearings, and that advocacy has been ongoing.
Earlier I mentioned our setting ambitious goals for the year. While COVID impacted our ability to reach those goals, I
believe we can look ahead with optimism as our region is well-positioned for a relatively quick recovery once travel can
resume at near-normal levels. Reasons for this include:
The decrease in visitation and associated spending in 2020 did not drop as much as we had originally projected. This,
combined with our expense reduction measures, has resulted in our organization having sufficient funds to
aggressively market once the time is right.
Outdoor recreation activities spiked in 2020 and our region is rich with assets and opportunities to meet this demand.
Youth sports showed resilience in 2020 and its impact on our region will continually increase moving through the
new year.
Tourism industry research is showing that moving forward, travelers will be staying closer to home and driving more
instead of flying. Our region has always benefitted from having more than 100 million people living within a day’s
drive. We will realize that benefit even more so in the future.
There is evidence that our county and region welcomed many first-time and “first time in a long time” guests in
2020. Many of these people will be back and hopefully next time, with more people in tow. I say these things
knowing we have a long way to go before we are out from under the weight this virus has brought to us and cannot
forget about the economic and human suffering already experienced by many. As we look forward with optimism, we
must also do what we can to help the many who need our support.
As we wait for the vaccine plan to roll out, the Shores & Islands staff team, boards and committees will continue our work
to keep the Shores & Islands region top of mind and have our marketing plans ready to engage at higher levels when the
time is right.
In closing, I and all at Lake Erie Shores & Islands thank those on the front lines of this extremely challenging time. Our
region’s health care workers; first responders; service industry and retail workers; public officials, educators; transportation
workers, and so many others. The risks and sacrifices of these individuals allow our communities to continue serving the
needs of residents and visitors alike, and we are in their debt.
CHAMBER NEWS
Ribbon Cutting Lunch N Learn
Let us help you celebrate! Are you opening a
new business, expanding at your current MARCH 26
location, relocating, or celebrating a milestone
anniversary? Let your chamber help you
NOVEMBER 12
celebrate!
A Ribbon Cutting ceremony is an important part
of your overall marketing and advertising plan
and is a great way to kick off a grand opening or
relocation of a business.
A chamber representative will be on hand at
your event to offer congratulatory remarks and
Follow us on Facebook!
take a photo for the press.
We have masks available!
Call us and we will get them
to you! @PCChamber
2020/2021 Premier Members
MAIN STREET NEWS
M.O.M. (Meals on Madison)
40th Anniversary Walleye Festival
Main Street PC teamed up with PC Mayor
Mike Snider and the City of PC to bring an Planning is underway for the 40th Anniversary
area where people could take their food and Walleye Festival! Entertainment is set and we
sit down to eat with their family in a different are now accepting applications for food and
atmosphere than they've been in during the merchandise vendors Check out our Facebook
Covid-19 pandemic. This was such a huge page for more information!
success, with the help of our amazing
community, that we have decided to bring it
back again this year!
Follow us on Facebook!
THANK YOU!
The Port Clinton High School Art class and
Woodshop class have been hard at work producing
these amazing hearts for our downtown planters.
@MainStreetPortClinton They will be following these up with shamrocks and
Easter eggs!
@WalleyeFest Donations from Carter Lumber, Morgan Realty,
Magruder Hospital and Frederick Agency made this
Art Walks & First Fridays project possible!
This past summer, along with the GPCAAC,
we launched First Fridays. Artists we set up
in various locations throughout downtown
The support from our community has
ensured that this event will return in 2021!
CHAMBER BENEFITS
It is officially renewal time! We have sent out renewal packets and by
now we hope you have received them.
BENEFITS FOR YOU
PartnerSHIP V & A Risk Services
The NOACC Shipping Program, managed by V & A Risk Services uses a flat-fee structure
PartnerShip®, helps businesses save on small that makes it easy to understand your true
package shipping with exclusive discounts on costs of workers compensation versus line
select FedEx® services. Chamber members charges that are often buried in paperwork.
can also lower costs on freight with With accurate and insightful reporting on all
competitive discounts on LTL and truckload claim and trend data, their dedicated claims
services from reliable carriers like UPS professionals are committed to your success
Freight, YRC Freight, and more. with proactive claims strategies.
Anthem Chamber Energy Solutions
Full range of health insurance plans with cost This program helps manage your natural gas
savings. Businesses also get access to a costs by bringing local businesses together.
large network of quality providers . Premium CES helps control your natural gas costs by
savings of up to 1.4% on groups from 2-50 applying its market knowledge and
employees. Groups from 50-500 may be negotiation expertise, reducing your prices
eligible for a 1% premium savings. and helping you buy your natural gas when
the pricing is advantageous. This strategy
provides insurance against dramatic price
increases in the natural gas market.
OfficeMax & Office Depot
Save up to 80% on print services and
exclusive member priving on marketing
services, office products and much more
with the NOACC Purchasing Card. We will
mail out your card to use as part of your
renewal packet this year!
Important Phone Numbers
PartnerSHIP 800-599-2902
Anthem 1-844-633-6446
Chamber Energy Solutions 419-539-9180
V & A Risk Services 866-210-5717
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